Of Nuts and Pokeballs
by Meiixie
Summary: Oneshot. My mother released me into the dangerous wild with nothing but a tattered map, my inappropriate dress and shoes, basic supplies and an empty pokeball. But who's this annoying narc with the one pokemon I actually like, and where'd he come from?


_© Satoshi Tajiri, T.V. Tokyo, The Pokémon Company...and whatever else. I only own this poor strawberry blonde fountain of **sheer happiness **oh yay!_

_[Sarcasm alert]_

_

* * *

_In our little world, your parents can kick you out of the house, have a 'professional' entrust you with a semi-tame if not wild animal with dangerous supernatural powers and boot you out into the wild.

Why so many little kids find this prospect fun I will never know; sending out cute, colorful creatures out to kill each other for money and status is something I would expect to see happen in the boring fictional world of America and Britain and those other evil places where everyone was a backstabber.

But alas, some sucky traditions never change, and after putting it off for three years my mother finally booted me out the hard way with nothing but a change of underwear, basic supplies and a single pokeball all neatly packaged in a light blue messenger bag.

"Have fun on your journey!" She said to me without even tossing a glance my way and slammed the door shut. She locked it.

One thing I had unwillingly learned over the years is that girls who go on their pokémon journey wearing a dress usually don't get very far. Mom threw me out while I was wearing my nicest blue and light brown plaid dress and a white vest. I was also wearing my beige strap-on wedge heels. At best I would get to...I dunno. Sephoria Town? February 30th? An Ursaring's stomach?

Upon further inspection of my unusually large messenger bag, I found a town map in my backpack. It was old and crumpled, and some towns were missing; it was clearly mom's old map.

Cheap whore wouldn't even buy me a more recent frigging map.

It wasn't too bad though; tacked onto the map was a list of pokémon you could find in certain routes. I coupled this with the pokeball lying around in my bag and put two and two together.

Mom wanted me to catch my own starter.

But alas, all was well. The Touhou region didn't have unique starters; they were imported from other regions. They varied wildly. One day you could have Chimchar, Mudkip and Bulbasaur as options, the next you could have Torchic, Piplup and Chikorita...I really didn't like any of them. Plus, the closest lab handing out starters was all the way in New Leaf City, two towns and four long routes away (one of them being the obligatory starting forest I was nearing). Anyone dumb enough to try and get to New Leaf with no pokémon was mincemeat.

I sighed. "Let us now see what kind of crap I can catch..."

Pidgey? No.

Rattata? Ew.

Bidoof? _Hell _no.

Wurmple? For Beautifly? It's a possibility...

Hoot-Hoot? Naw.

Shaymin? Yeah, nice joke mom.

Shinx? It's a possibility as well...

Zigzagoon? Linoone is pretty cool-looking...

Ralts? Two _epic_ split-evolutions? I think we have a_ winner_!

I stuffed the map in my bag, and took out a bag of salted cashews. I ate them in a furious flash, wanting to waste no time. I choked on one of the little suckers.

After putting the remainder of the cashews away, the next two hours were solely dedicated to finding a Ralts to catch while plastering on the fakest happy disposition I could in order to attract one. Mom had spoon-fed me a lot of pokémon trivia and one of the more interesting things I learned was that Ralts are attracted by positive people. Now, normally I'm a positive person but after scavenging through the tall grass for two hours and sweating to the point where I was desperate for a bath I wasn't exactly going to be cheerful.

Finally, I thought I saw something hot pink that looked like a Ralts' horn. I fiddled through my bag and took out the pokeball. I stood up quietly and slowly, but cursed loudly to myself when I dropped my glasses.

I was shaking. Did it flee? "Where is it...where'd it go...?"

Suddenly, I felt my eyesight restored to how it was with my glasses on, along with a warm hand putting my glasses in place. In front of me was this little green-clad boy with thick glasses much bigger than mine, and a Ralts on his shoulder.

I nearly cried.

This kid looked to be about eight or nine (but he assured me he was 10 and even flashed his trainer's license a few times later) and bragged about being a gym leader when he grew up.

I was focused on the Ralts grabbing onto his skirt for dear life but looking complacent as ever. I was jealous. I spend hours searching for the thing and then HE comes along and just has one out of the blue?! I saw no pokeballs on his belt, so I assumed it was his only pokémon. The thought only made me even more jealous; those things were rare as sin!

_'I'd probably have a better chance of finding that Shaymin...' _I thought.

"So why are you so dirty, anyway?" He asked after a while. I'm pretty sure he told me his name but I wasn't paying much attention to him. I wanted to see if I could guess his Ralts' gender.

I didn't wanna tell him the whole truth. He'd probably realize why I was eying his Ralts with such fervor and flee.

"I'm looking for a starter..." I drifted off.

He stared at me as if I had grown a second head. "You...you don't have a pokémon yet?! But you look so old!"

I felt a vein pop coming in. "Well sorry princess, but not all of us WANT to leave home, force cute little animals into plastic balls and coerce them into killing each other."

The little brat then smirked. He _smirked. _"You're just like my sister." I was on my knees still, so he bent down to eye level with me. "Alright, tell me what happened. Were you attacked? Bad history? Mother issues?"

I was starting to get pissed. "No!" I snapped. The kid snapped back to hid original position as his Ralts shrieked and hid inside his shirt. "I just find the concept barbaric."

He still looked at me with that incredulous look. It was then obvious to me that this kid had never met anyone who just didn't like battling.

"Well...there are always contests..." he suggested.

"I hate those even more! Girlying up your pokémon and forcing them to degrade themselves by parading in front of a bunch of stuck-up elitists. The thought!" I huffed. I could feel my back hunching, which happened when I was annoyed. I crossed my arms.

"Breeding..." he was just throwing shit around now.

"Breeding, styling, racing, hunting! Anything else?!"

The boy gulped and looked not just sad, or even like he was going to cry, but like an Eevee on the brink of a happiness-induced evolution that had just been brutally abandoned by its trainer. He had his hands up as if to defend himself from an incoming blow. By now I was sure his Ralts would have pissed itself dry if it could. I knew I was being unfair to the poor kid; he just wanted to help and I was unleashing my pent up frustration on him.

"M-Maybe we should go l-look in the f-forest? I-I'll prot-tect you-u..." He was holding back sobs. I could tell. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn't summon the testicular fortitude to do so and simply walked along with him into the forest.

We made our way deeper in. The kid kept his distance, and looked down whenever I faced him. He was now hugging his Ralts like a plush teddiursa in front of him. It looked sad too. Occasionally he'd make eye contact with Ralts and nod or shake his head as if they were having some sort of private conversation consisting of yes or no questions I couldn't hear.

My conscience soon got the better of me and I sighed. "Look, I'm sorry okay? My mom left me this list of pokémon I could catch and I really wanted to catch a Ralts but I've been looking for two hours and..."

"...A-And?"

"Well as you can see, I got nothing. It's nearing sundown and I need to get to Sephoria Town quick before my mom sends out a freaking search party to look for me, but I couldn't just come into this forest alone. I'd get maimed! At this point I'll even settle for a frikin' starly..." I heard a bit of a flapping sound.

The kid looked up at my head. He stopped walking and got closer to me.

"What?"

"..."

Even his Ralts looked up and stared at my head. I could actually see its red eyes. I didn't know Ralts _had_ eyes.

"WHAT?!" I was getting annoyed again. "Yeah, my hair is the color of a strawberry smoothie. Anything else?!"

"T-There's one on your head."

"One what?!"

"One Starly."

I looked up and saw a little brown bird leaking glitter nested on my head. It looked at me happily with beady black eyes. Its beak was yellow instead of the usual blaze orange, and ended in the same tone of brown as its feathers.

"Oh...my..." I clutched the pokeball I had never let go of, and slowly let it get closer to the shiny starly. "Don't move now..." I muttered with gritted teeth. The starly head butted the pokeball, which only caused it to open and suck it in sooner.

I froze. The kid froze too. Ralts looked on complacently. For a quick second I noticed that it had remained completely silent this whole time.

The ball shook around a little before making an unfamiliar pinging sound.

"Did I...catch it?" I looked at the kid for an answer. Realizing that this time I actually wanted his input, he proudly responded: "Yeah! You caught the shiny starly!"

I stared at the pokeball, flabbergasted for a minute before we burst out in euphoria in perfect unison, did a crazy little dance and made it to the end of the forest just as the sun finally set. I saw the familiar faded lights of the bridge to Sephoria Town, and sighed in relief.

"Is that Sephoria Town over there?" The kid asked.

"Yeah."

"...Is there a gym?"

"No."

"Damn."

It was then that it hit me that this kid was a trainer. I looked down at him, making eye contact for what was probably the second time that day. "You can register for the Touhou league though."

The kid beamed. "Really? Awesome! Where do I sign up?"

"Let's go to the pokémon center. I need to call my mom..."

The kid ran in front of me. I looked back, eying the exit to Sephoria Forest. He looked back when he noticed that I wasn't trailing behind him. "Is something wrong?"

"I know this is going to sound dumb..." I looked back at him. "But are there any Shaymin in that forest?"

He looked amused. "If you don't know, I definitely won't. I'm not from here! Why do you ask?"

I shrugged. "Not important. Let's go."

"But wait!"

"What now?" I asked.

"I never got your name." I froze. He was right. We didn't know each other's names.

"Charine." I never asked him for his name; I didn't have the testicular fortitude to even do that after he probably told me already. I figured I'd know soon enough.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the forest, a little white hedgehog looked on in awe as the Illumise and Volbeat began to swarm. Pink flowers bloomed from its back. The shrub on its back camouflaged it nicely from predators. While trying to find a nice spot to watch the show, it found some salted cashews scattered all over the grass. It feasted on those as the bug pokémon began to flutter happily, tails alight.

_"(So pretty!)"_


End file.
